I’ve been studying Japanese on and off for over a year now using Anki to help with vocabulary. I have always had my cards show the English translation than the word in Japanese afterward, but I have seen most people have it the other way. Personally my reason for doing it English first is because it helps my brain process and think more about the word and how to say it, helping me remember better.
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Was curious what other people thought about this and what setup others have.
3 comments
It’s pretty backwards to have the English on the front. The point of the cards is to get used to recognizing the word (in Japanese) and associating the meaning with it (and remembering the reading).
Ideally you’re cards wouldn’t have any English on them (Japanese definitions instead of English), but that’s not really practical until you get a decent baseline vocabulary.
I finally swapped to a Japanese dictionary this year and am now adding vocab to my deck with Japanese definitions (and an English one in case, though I rarely look at it). I think the earlier you can swap to a J-J dictionary, the better. I wish I would’ve switched to it earlier.
Japanese word on the back is better for production. There have been several posts here from users who put the Japanese word on the front, can easily recognize the word when they see it, but have a hard time producing the word when speaking/writing.
On the other hand, if all you care about is input (listening/reading), Japanese word on the front is better for recognition.
I have Anki configured to, whenever i create a new card, automatically create a second card with English and Japanese swapped, and both are from then on treated as separate cards for the learning process.
This way I learn it in both directions.